By Clarisse Céspedes and Sosha Capps.

California’s San Joaquin Valley is a predominantly rural, highly diverse region that boasts a rich, multicultural history, including serving as one of the birthplaces of the environmental justice and farmworker rights movements. It is also one of the poorest and most polluted regions in the nation, with high levels of toxic contamination in the air, water, and land, and notable health disparities including cancer, cardiovascular disease (including stroke, high blood pressure), chronic kidney and liver disease, chronic respiratory disease, diabetes, low birth weight, and child and infant deaths. 

In March of 2024, UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center (Center THREE— (TOWARDS HEALTH, RESILIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL EQUITY) partnered with its Community Advisory Committee to organize a day-long tour on Environmental Justice and Health in the San Joaquin Valley. The tour brought together researchers, grassroots leaders, community-based organizations, regional, state and federal regulatory agencies, and leadership from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, including Rick Woychick (Director), Claudia Thompson (Chief of the Population Health Branch), and Liam O’Fallon (lead of the Partnerships for Environmental Public Health program.)

The day began in the small, unincorporated communities of Cantua Creek and Lanare, both classified by the State of California as Disadvantaged Communities. These are the areas throughout the state that are disproportionately impacted by combination of economic, health, and environmental burdens. These burdens include poverty, high unemployment, air and water pollution, the presence of hazardous wastes, as well as high incidence of asthma and heart disease.  

Phoebe Seaton from Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability (LCJA) and Nayamin Martinez from the Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN) shared community and advocacy perspectives on the cumulative impacts of pesticide exposures, water pollution, air pollution, and food insecurity. Residents provided poignant testimony on their experiences of toxic exposures, the effects of climate change, resource scarcity, and inadequate government response to their concerns. 

Drinking water systems in crisis

Groundwater contamination is widespread throughout the San Joaquin Valley. Common contaminants include nitrates from fertilizer use and manure runoff; arsenic, which is naturally occurring but made worse by over pumping and drought; and pesticides – both those currently in use and persistent legacy products like 1,2,3-TCP. Rural residents relying on shallow residential and community wells are most as risk. 

Lanare and Cantua Creek exemplify both the depth and complexity of these challenges. Like many similar unincorporated communities in the San Joaquin Valley, they were established by Black and Mexican farmworkers in the 1950s, who had come to California hoping for a better life. Against the backdrop of exclusionary housing practices and discrimination, these workers were forced to make their homes in isolated rural locations without electricity or running water. 

When wells and pipes were finally installed in the 1970s and 80s, Lanare’s water was found to contain toxic levels of arsenic and Cantua Creek’s wells soon became contaminated with nitrates. After decades of community organizing and advocacy, an arsenic treatment plant was built in Lanare in 2007, only to close six months later due to lack of operating funds, leaving the community in debt. Thirteen years later, in 2019, two new wells finally provided the town with water free from arsenic, but which residents still don’t feel safe to drink, reporting that it smells and leaves a residue on sinks and toilets. 

In Cantua Creek, residents are paying high prices for tap water imported from another water district, which despite being treated is considered unsafe to drink, and relying on the state for bottled drinking water. They have been waiting since 2018 for new wells, facing repeated delays, mounting water debt, and uncertainty as to whether even the new wells will be able to provide clean and accessible water in the face of drought and falling water tables. 

“We live forgotten, unseen, neglected, with contaminated water. We have been fighting over this for years," said a resident in Cantua Creek. "We had very good and cheap water but now we can't even use it for cooking, we don't even want to bathe with it."

The impact of pesticide exposure

Farms in the San Joaquin Valley use more pesticides than any other region of the county. Pesticide exposure has been linked to a wide range of acute and chronic health issues. Racial and economic disparities in pesticide exposures are stark, with agricultural workers, those living near the fields, and children being particularly vulnerable. 

"They don't notify [us] about pesticides. I worked doing this and I know at night is when they spray the most. All night, tons (of pesticides) on almonds, pistachios... and no warning," said a Lanare resident at the forum.  

Several local activists highlighted the need for basic infrastructure in underserved areas, such as cooling centers in summer and heating in winter, that could also be used as a safe place when pesticide spraying is taking place or during other emergencies.  

"We need the air purifiers. I am asthmatic and I have to lock myself in my house. I have two air purifiers. Imagine for the children, who want to play sports and can't have a normal life," said a third resident. 

Noxious fumes from dairy manure lagoons, illegal dumping and trash burning, heat islands, inadequate home cooling and air filtration, and limited transportation to access essential health services are all serious problems facing residents in both communities. Residents also highlighted the disconnect that persists between industrial agriculture and the needs of local communities.

After lunch, the participants circulated around stations where advocates – Ruben Rodriguez from CCEJN, Mariana Alvarenga from LCJA, as well as Angel Garcia and Raul Garcia from Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) – shared their work on key environmental justice and health issues such as pesticides, drinking water quality, air pollution and climate change. In addition, UC Davis researchers discussed their work on portable environmental health sensors (Nicholas Kenyon, Mitchell McCartney, Cristina Davis), testing water from domestic wells (Vida Sanchez, Jasqueline Peña), and using backpacks to sample pesticide exposure (Deborah Bennett collaborating with CPR). 

"We have to see the reality of vulnerable groups and offer solutions"

The event at Lanare concluded with a roundtable and tour participant discussion with the government regulators and Dr. Woychik, moderated by EHSC's Community Engagement Core faculty director, Jonathan London. The dialogue highlighted community environmental health concerns, requests of the regulatory agencies, as well as community research priorities to support and inform their advocacy. 

All parties expressed the importance of continuing dialogue particularly to bring attention to cumulative impacts – a goal that would necessitate an improved inter-agency/ community collaboration. As one regulator said, "We know you need answers. [And we realize that] 'sorry, this is another agency' [is not a good answer]. We need to stop working in silos".

Members of the Lanare community urged the organizers to not let the forum be a one-time event, but instead keep the conversation going through regular virtual meetings with agencies and scientists to develop collaborative solutions to addressing cumulative impacts. The UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center THREE will be convening these meetings going forward, which are currently in the planning stages.     

The warehouse boom in Fresno

On the way back through Fresno, participants were joined by Veronica Garibay (Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability) to show how the community of South-Central Fresno faces increasing industrialization. This is driven by the boom in warehouses, distribution centers, and factories that has led to severe air pollution, including toxic Diesel Particulate Matter as well as negative impacts on sound, vibration, and traffic safety, affecting the health and well-being of local residents.

In 2021, the South Fresno Community Alliance took legal action against the City of Fresno on the grounds that the city’s Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) – a blanket environmental study builders can use when constructing new projects – was inadequate for addressing the impacts of industrial development, particularly on South Fresno communities. After an initial dismissal, community advocates won their case on appeal in August 2024, and dozens of projects across the city have been halted and will be required to develop their own Environmental Impact Reports. Advocacy groups are also pushing for the implementation of buffer zones between warehouses and "sensitive receptors" such as daycare centers, schools, and hospitals to reduce exposure to air pollution.

The event ended with the leadership of NIEHS and the UC Davis Environmental Health Science Center THREE expressing their appreciation for the community residents and advocates for sharing their expertise and experiences and for the regulators for committing to address community issues.

The center wants to recognize original inspiration by Tanya Khemet (former co-director of the CEC) and the organizing brilliance of Nayamin Martinez from CCEJN.